Elections NS could be ready for April election

HALIFAX — Despite a pandemic, and a year’s delay in getting their budget funding allocation, Elections Nova Scotia could be ready to put on a provincial election by April 1.

That’s unless Bill 225, which has already received Royal Assent, gets proclaimed.

If the bill of amendments to the Elections Act — meant to improve transparency and provide additional financial supports for candidates incurring child, elder, spousal care or disability related costs — gets proclaimed, Elections Nova Scotia won’t be ready for a provincial election until Sept. 1 due to the need to print new returning office materials, manuals and update training modules.

The details are contained in the Elections Nova Scotia Elections Readiness Update Report released on Thursday.

“With the guidance of the chief medical officer of health, Dr. (Robert) Strang and his staff, we are now confident we can safely deliver an election in-person,” reads the report. “While we are hopeful the pandemic dissipates, we nonetheless must prepare under the assumption that full pandemic safety precautions will be required.”

The extra personal protective equipment required to hold an election during the pandemic would cost $800,000.

Elections Nova Scotia will also seek to encourage more people to vote by mail — aiming to quadruple the amount of votes cast in this method (one per cent of people mailed in ballots in 2017).

A heavy push will also be made to raise the number of people voting in person at advance ballots (30 per cent of votes were cast this way in 2017), to alleviate the congestion on election day.